What about girls? Are they really not aggressive?
Nina S. Mounts, Ph.D., The
Human Development and Family Life Bulletin
A Review of Research and Practice
Volume 3, Issue 2, Summer 1997
Many of the books or papers on aggression in children focus primarily on boys. Most people assume that boys are more aggressive than girls, which leads to problems for boys, but not for girls, in their peer relationships. In fact, many of the research studies that examine aggressive children only include boys.
A MORE SUBTLE AGGRESSION
In her recent work, Dr. Nikki Crick of the
Most of the previous research, as well as interventions with aggressive, peer-rejected children, define aggression as either physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt another person. Crick believes that girls, in general, do not engage in this type of aggression against their peers. They do, however, employ relational aggression. Relational aggression is behavior specifically intended to hurt another child's friendships or feelings of inclusion in a peer group. An example of relational aggression would be a child spreading hurtful rumors about another child so that other children are less inclined to be friendly toward her. Or, a child might retaliate against another child by not including her in the play group. Relational aggression, then, is deliberate manipulation on the part of a child to damage another child's peer relationships.
Crick's work with elementary school children has demonstrated that the degree of aggressiveness exhibited by girls has been underestimated, mainly because it is difficult to measure. Clearly, when one child hits another, that child is behaving in an overtly aggressive way. In contrast, how do you tell when one child has started a rumor about another?
Because adults are not always privy to the comings and goings of children's peer groups, they may be unaware of any relational aggression. Although Crick detected overlap in teachers and children's reports of relational aggression in the classrooms where she conducted her research, she did not detect complete overlap. In other words, relational aggression occurred without the knowledge of the teacher.
LINKS TO PEER REJECTION
Using measures completed both by teachers and children, Crick found that girls engaged in higher levels of relational aggression than boys. Girls who engaged in relational aggression exhibited a number of adjustment difficulties, and had self-reported higher levels of depression, loneliness, and social isolation than their peers. In addition, peers disliked relationally aggressive girls more than other girls.
Girls who engaged in relational aggression early in the school year were more likely to be rejected by their peers later in the school year than girls who did not engage in relational aggression early on. Not surprisingly, children who demonstrated relational aggression at one time point were likely to continue using it throughout the school year.
Because research finds relational aggression to be a relatively stable behavior in children, Crick's research has implications for practitioners who conduct interventions with peer-rejected children. Clearly, children who engage in relational aggression are candidates for peer relationship intervention programs to prevent future peer rejection.
FRIENDSHIP CHARACTERISTICS
Previous research on children's peer relationships has shown that having at least one friend buffers a child from some of the negative effects of peer rejection. Because relational aggression involves manipulating friendships, Crick and Grotpeter (1995) were interested in examining the friendships of relationally aggressive children. Friendships of relationally aggressive children did not differ from those of nonaggressive children on measures of caring, companionship, and helping one another. Relationally aggressive children's friendships did differ from nonrelationally aggressive children in several ways, however. First, relationally aggressive children and their best friends reported higher levels of intimacy in their friendships than did other children. This high level of intimacy probably puts the nonaggressive friend at risk because the relationally aggressive child has ready access to important, private information about the other child. A relationally aggressive child could easily use threats to disclose the information to manipulate her friend. Second, a high level of exclusivity exists in the friendship with the relationally aggressive child. Again, this may put the other friend at risk to be manipulated because she may have limited friends to turn to as alternatives. A final feature of these friendships is their high degree of internal relational aggression. Relationally aggressive children direct many of their aggressive behaviors toward their friends. These findings are dramatically different from those of overtly aggressive children and their friends. Overtly aggressive children tend to behave aggressively toward those external to the friendship rather than toward each other. The aggressive behavior is directed outside the dyad.
This line of research clearly will be of interest to practitioners as it develops. Although no interventions have been developed to date using this information, practitioners should develop prevention interventions with relationally aggressive children.
Female Perpetrators
As recently as 10 years ago, it was a common assumption that females did not or could not sexually abuse children or youth. Even some professionals working in the field believed that women represented only about 1% to 3% of sexual abusers at most. However, mounting research evidence about sexual abuse perpetration at the hands of teen and adult females has begun to challenge our assumptions, though these earlier and dated views still tend to predominate.
The percentage of women and teenage girl perpetrators recorded in case report studies is small and ranges from 3% to 10% (Kendall-Tackett and Simon, 1987; McCarty, 1986; Schultz and Jones, 1983; Wasserman and Kappel, 1985). When the victim is male, female perpetrators account for 1 % to 24% of abusers. When the victim is female, female perpetrators account for 6% to 17% of abusers (American Humane Association, 1981; Finkelhor and Russell, 1984; Finkelhor et al., 1990). In the Ontario Incidence Study, 10% of sexual abuse investigations involved female perpetrators (Trocme, 1994). However, in six studies reviewed by Russell and Finkelhor, female perpetrators accounted for 25% or more of abusers. Ramsay-Klawsnik (1990) found that adult females were abusers of males 37% of the time and female adolescents 19% of the time. Both of these rates are higher than the same study reported for adult and teen male abusers.
Dynamics of Female-Perpetrated Abuse
Some research has reported that female perpetrators commit fewer and less intrusive acts of sexual abuse compared to males. While male perpetrators are more likely to engage in anal intercourse and to have the victim engage in oral-genital contact, females tend to use more foreign objects as part of the abusive act (Kaufman et al., 1995). This study also reported that differences were not found in the- frequency of vaginal intercourse, fondling by the victim or abuser, genital body contact without penetration or oral contact by the abuser.
Females may be more likely to use verbal coercion than physical force. The most commonly reported types of abuse by female perpetrators include vaginal intercourse, oral sex, fondling and group sex (Faller, 1987; Hunter et al., 1993). However, women also engage in mutual masturbation, oral, anal and genital sex acts, show children pornography and play sex games (Johnson, 1989; Knopp and Lackey, 1987). The research suggests that, overall, female and male perpetrators commit many of the same acts and follow many of the same patterns of abuse against their victims. They also do not tend to differ significantly in terms of their relationship to the victim (most are relatives) or the location of the abuse (Allen, 1990; Kaufman et al., 1995).
It is interesting to note in the study by Kaufman et al. (1995) that 8% of the female perpetrators were teachers and 23% were babysitters, compared to male perpetrators who were 0% and 8% respectively. Finkelhor et al. (1988) also report significantly higher rates of sexual abuse of children by females in day-care settings. Of course, Finkelhor's findings should not surprise us given that women represent the majority of day-care employees.
Research on teen and adult female sexual abuse perpetrators has found that many suffer from low self-esteem, antisocial behaviour, poor social and anger management skills, fear of rejection, passivity, promiscuity, mental health problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and mood disorders (Hunter et al., 1993; Mathews, Matthews and Speltz, 1989). However, as in the case of male perpetrators, research does not substantiate that highly emotionally disturbed or psychotic individuals predominate among the larger population of female sexual abusers (Faller, 1987).
There is some evidence that females are more likely to be involved with co-abusers, typically a male, though studies report a range from 25% to 77% (Faller, 1987; Kaufman et al., 1995; McCarty, 1986). However, Mayer (1992), in a review of data on 17 adolescent female sex offenders, found that only 2 were involved with male co-perpetrators. She also found that the young women in this study knew their victims and that none experienced legal consequences for their actions.
Self-report studies provide a very different view of sexual abuse perpetration and substantially increase the number of female perpetrators. In a retrospective study of male victims, 60% reported being abused by females (Johnson and Shrier, 1987). The same rate was found in a sample of college students (Fritz et al., l 981). In other studies of male university and college students, rates of female perpetration were found at levels as high as 72% to 82% (Fromuth and Burkhart, 1987, 1989; Seidner and Calhoun, 1984). Bell et al. (1981) found that 27% of males were abused by females. In some of these types of studies, females represent as much as 50% of sexual abusers (Risin and Koss, 1987). Knopp and Lackey (1987) found that 51% of victims of female sexual abusers were male. It is evident that case report and self-report studies yield very different types of data about prevalence. These extraordinary differences tell us we need to start questioning all of our assumptions about perpetrators and victims of child maltreatment.
Finally, there is an alarmingly high rate of sexual abuse by females in the backgrounds of rapists, sex offenders and sexually aggressive men - 59% (Petrovich and Templer, 1984), 66% (Groth, 1979) and 80% (Briere and Smiljanich, 1993). A strong case for the need to identify female perpetrators can be found in Table 4, which presents the findings from a study of adolescent sex offenders by O'Brien (1989). Male adolescent sex offenders abused by "females only" chose female victims almost exclusively.
